There were few people in the buildings because none were housing any of the participants in several educational and band camps at CMU, Morrow said.

Campus grounds workers, residence hall directors and residence life staff were the only people using the buildings, and staff members were away from the buildings attending a meeting when the gas line was broken, Morrow said.

“We were very fortunate,” he said.

As police cordoned off the area surrounding the buildings and barricaded Washington Street from Broomfield to Ottawa Court, workers from DTE and Mt. Pleasant firefighters were called to the scene.

Workers from DTE unearthed the main line to shut off the gas, and firefighters cleared the scene at roughly 1:45 p.m.

Gas was still shut off so workers could fix the broken line, which was near the loading dock area by the food commons.

When the gas line break was first reported, CMU Police used the Everbridge emergency system to alert people in the vicinity of the four residence halls, Morrow said.

An alert was sent that was specific to the four buildings, and once police learned the scope of the problem, the university’s outdoor speaker system was used to warn people to stay out of the area, Morrow said.

After the main line was shut off, firefighters went into the buildings to assess air quality and to determine whether people could go back into the residence halls.